Here is a short video showing a meeting of the D.C. Taxicab Commission, a government agency. The strange thing is, only English speakers without accents are allowed to speak.

D.C. taxi drivers recently decided to join the Teamsters union. It seems they need all the help they can get. In this video, you can see that when a taxi driver with a foreign accent goes to the podium to address the Taxicab Commission, the Commission's chairman, Ron Linton, stops him and tells him that anyone wishing to address them must provide the commissioners with a written copy of their remarks, or else they're not allowed to speak. Another commissioner explains that the commission requires written testimony because "a lot of our cab drivers have difficulty with our language. It's very difficult for us to understand some of the people that testify." The commission's solution to this quandary, you see, is to make them write everything down, or else be barred from speaking in a public meeting at all. Though this is not a typical practice at open government meetings, it it makes things much easier—for the commissioners. Not so much for the people they ostensibly serve.

And the kicker: at the end of the video, an American cab driver without an accent comes up to speak, and notes that he has no written testimony. The commissioners tell him to go ahead and speak, because "we do understand you."